PowerPoint Talks

In this three-part series, we will first visit Moscow, ride its Metro to Red Square, where we will view the Kazan Cathedral and the iconic onion-domes of St. Basil’s (pictured), and Lenin’s Tomb, both during the daytime and at night. During the day, we will watch the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and visit Cathedral Square that houses the Churches where once the Tsars were crowned. In our second part of the series, we will board our riverboat, “The Rurik,” and cruise the 683-mile Waterway of the Tsars to St. Petersburg, stopping to visit the cultural and historical villages along the way. On the final leg of our virtual tour, we will disembark at our destination, St. Petersburg, founded by the Romanov Tsar, Peter the Great. We’ll tour the Hermitage Art Museum, Catherine’s Palace, Peterhof with its magnificent gardens and fountains, and the fortress and church of Peter and Paul, which houses the tombs of the ruling Romanovs and the remains of Tsar Nicholas and his family. And in this series, we’ll become acquainted with some of the more prominent members of both the Rurik Dynasty (think Ivan the Terrible) and the Romanovs (think the last Tsar, Nicholas, who, along with his family, was murdered during the Communist Revolution).

Part 1) Moscow

Part 2) Waterway of the Tsars

Part 3) St. Petersburg

Starting in 1991, before the Fall of the Wall, and continuing until 2014, June Anderson has visited Russia six times: Moscow twice, St. Petersburg three times, and traveled to Siberia. Her last trip there was a Viking Riverboat Cruise along the Waterway of the Tsars between the original capital, Moscow, ruled by the Rurik Dynasty, and the Romanov capital, St. Petersburg, founded by Peter the Great.

Travel along the Silk Road as we visit the ancient cities of Uzbekistan. We’ll begin and end in Tashkent, the capital city, that has reinvented itself after a century of Soviet occupation. Next stop will be Samarkand, a city of mosques and madrassa, built in the 15th century by Amir Temur, 14 th Century conqueror and modern-day hero of the Uzbeks. Then, we’ll travel the Silk Road to visit more ancient cities and join the throngs of holiday-goers for the Goldbroidery Festival in the timeless city of Bukhara to enjoy song, dance, and shopping for treasures.

Part 1: Samarkand and Anir Temur

Part 2: Along the Silk Road to Bukhara and the Goldbroidery Festival

June Anderson has had the opportunity to visit many “faraway places with strange sounding names,” thanks to her son’s career in the Foreign Service. She has visited Uzbekistan twice, once in 2002 and again in 2022. Her most recent book, Travels with the Diplomat’s Mother, includes this and the five other countries her son was posted in over his 25-year career.

After first viewing the Biblical Mt. Ararat from its capital city, Yerevan, we’ll explore Areni Cave, where archeologists have unearthed a 6,000-year-old wine press and an array of fermenting vats and storage pots. We’ll follow the trail of prehistoric standing stones, Armenia’s Stonehenge, marching across the mountaintop, visit a pagan temple complex, and a monastery carved into a mountain. And we will learn the truth about the holocaust perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks in 1915, in which 1.5 million Armenians lost their lives.

Part 1: Caves, Stones, and Monasteries

Part 2: The Armenian Holocaust and 20 th -century Armenia

Visiting her son, who was posted as a diplomat in the American Embassy in Armenia, afforded June Anderson a unique opportunity to travel this ancient land and learn about its history and culture. Her most recent book, Travels with the Diplomat’s Mother, includes this and the five other countries her son was posted in over his 25- year career.

Twenty years ago, my husband and I celebrated the most wonderous Christmas of our lives in Krakow, Poland as we joined our son and his family for the holiday. We visited the medieval Market Square, alive with Christmas, Santa Claus, and Ronald McDonald; rode in a carriage to Wawal castle and met its fire-breathing dragon, Smok; and took a one-horse open sleigh ride over the river and thru the forested hills of the Carpathian Mountains. Let me share this storybook memory with you.

June Anderson is an author who lists history and travel as her favorite pastimes, often combining these two loves into books and PowerPoint talks which she will share with anyone willing to listen.

This is the story of two men—one a writer, the other a warlord, who lived in different countries in different centuries, and how their lives intertwined to create the most memorable villain of all time—Count Dracula. In 1897 Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, launched an entire genre of literature and film about vampires. Join him as we track Dracula from a crypt in Dublin, to the ruins of Whitby Abbey in England, to castles in Romania once frequented by Vlad Tepes, aka “Vlad the Impaler.”

June Anderson has explored the paranormal world with Dave Schrader, former host of Darkness Radio. Adding research to travel, she has produced both a full-color book and a PowerPoint presentation about her paranormal travels in search of Dracula.

Experience History with a Paranormal Twist on an Armchair Tour Through Ireland. Ireland is famous for its “thin places,” a membrane or a thin layer between worlds that cross over each other. From pagan times to present, Ireland’s dark history has been recorded in its abbeys and churches, forts and castles, jails and graveyards by those who lived during those turbulent times and often perished because of them. Their ghosts are eyewitnesses to this history. Sometimes, they are the history.

June Anderson traveled from her hometown of Anoka where ghosts abound and she once led Ghost Tours, to Ireland, to check out their ghostly residents. She found the history that produced these earth-bound spirits to be as fascinating as the ghosts themselves.

Through the magic of Power Point, your guide will take you through forgotten Anoka to hear the stories of the people who once lived there and, according to some, are still hanging around. During this hour-long presentation, she will tell you of long ago Anoka—of the Jackson Hotel, now Billy’s, the old Post Office, Colonial Hall, the Masonic Lodge, and some infamous residences, all haunted, of course.

June Anderson is a former Anoka Ghost Tour Guide and has taken part in numerous paranormal investigations. As well as being on familiar terms with the Anoka Ghosts, she has traveled to Ireland, England, and Romania to meet theirs.

In honor of Veterans’ Day, learn the stories of some of the 72 Minnesota men who have been awarded the Medal of Honor, dating from the Civil War to the Vietnam Conflict. Meet the Schoolmaster who took his students to war, dooming their hometown to oblivion; a Hungarian Freedom Fighter who signed up to fight Commies in Vietnam; the Anoka hometown hero who smothered a grenade and lived to tell the tale, and a host of other brave men who fought and died for their country.

June Anderson was one of the 27 Minnesota Daughters of the American Revolution, (DAR), who researched and wrote these biographies in response to a request by the National Medal of Honor Committee. In addition to writing, June saw to the publication of these biographies, providing the inspiration for a PBS documentary by Doug Ohman.